Michigan men’s gymnastics wins program’s seventh national championship
The No. 2-ranked Michigan men’s gymnastics team won the NCAA national title Saturday night at the Crisler Center with a score of 332.224, the program’s seventh national title.
It is the Wolverines’ first national title since 2014, when Michigan last hosted the finals at Crisler.
Paul Juda, a graduate student, was the final Michigan competitor of the meet, and his 13.966 on the vault was the difference in outscoring runner-up Stanford (332.061). Oklahoma (327.891) was third, followed by Nebraska (326.222), Penn State (317.258) and Illinois (316.293).
Michigan’s Fred Richard won the individual all-around competition with a score of 84.264.
Juda finished second in the all-around (82.164) on the strength of his parallel bars title with a season-high 14.200.
Michigan’s Carson Eshleman and Richard tied for second on the high bar at 13.766 and Wolverine Evgeny Siminiuc was third on the parallel bars at 14.066.
After the meet, Juda proposed to girlfriend Reyna Guggino, a member of the Michigan women’s gymnastics team, and she accepted, according to various social media reports.
Juda is from Des Plaines, Illinois, and was a member of the bronze medal-winning U.S. Olympic gymnastics team at the 2024 Paris Games. Guggino is from Tampa, Florida.
The Wolverines advanced to the NCAA finals after finishing first in Session II of qualifying Friday night. They had a team score of 329.824, while Stanford (329.028) was second and Illinois (323.195) was third. No. 4 Nebraska, No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 5 Penn State advanced out of Session I.
Michigan, then ranked No. 3, won its fifth consecutive Big Ten championship earlier this month at Crisler Center. The Wolverines finished with a score of 330.750, their second-highest team score of the season. This is the longest streak of Big Ten championships by the program since the Wolverines won six straight from 1961-66.
